The Egyptian blogosphere scene is still witnessing more clampdowns on bloggers by State Security for different reasons. This week’s most recent incident is the arrest of Egyptian blogger Omar El Sharkawy.

El-Sharkawy was arrested on June 11 while covering Egypt’s Shura Council elections or Upper House of parliament in his constituency in Talkha in North Egypt. Manfe reported that the arrest process was humiliating. El-Sharkawy himself managed to give a phone call from the police station to his friends to report his arrest.

Blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah wrote that State Security kidnapped El-Sharkawy and there were no legal procedures to charge him. He also said many lawyers were trying to reach the police station in his town where he is supposed to be detained but they were hampered by the security. Finally, some succeeded, however the police is denying he is in prison and that’s why Alaa believes he was kidnapped.

Tahyyes is reporting there is a difficulty finding his ID information which is making friends, bloggers and lawyers’ mission difficult to report to officials his disappearance after the detention. According to Tahyyes, El-Sharkawy has no one but his friends as his parents had passed away long time ago. You can be Omar’s friend and sign your name here in solidarity with him.

On February 22, Egyptian Blogger Abdel kareem Nabil Soliman Amer was sentenced to four years in prison for his writings. He is spending three years in jail for his writings on the Sunni Al-Azhar Institution and one year for writing about the President of Egypt.

Support our work 🙏

Global Voices stands out as one of the earliest and strongest examples of how media committed to building community and defending human rights can positively influence how people experience events happening beyond their own communities and national borders.

5 comments

It’s time we should start working hard and do contribute some solid things to such campaigns like Free Kareem to ensure that the Egyptian government feels morally obliged to free the bloggers and respect their rights.

It is a shame that in these times of growing democracies, Egypt still sees fit to muzzle opposing voices. The Egyptian government must free Kareem. Having a different view does not make a person a traitor. Egypt must join the free world and allow different points of view to be expressed without fear.